


saving the world

by gingergenower



Series: saving the world [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, ? also maybe, ? maybe, Alternate Universe, Angst, Cop Killian, F/M, Firefighter Emma, First Meetings, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 09:47:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8051614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingergenower/pseuds/gingergenower
Summary: Prompt: ‘you’re a cop, I’m a firefighter, we always work the same shifts’ORFive times Emma and Killian meet on shift, and one time they don’t.





	saving the world

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so firstly a disclaimer- I tried to do my research but most of my information comes from watching Chicago Fire and Chicago PD, no lie. So, apologies anyone who knows more than me, but the rest of you can pretend I know everything and continue to live in blissful ignorance.

The call they get is pretty straightforward- car accident, head on into a tree. No one’s trapped, the driver got out, but they’re at the edge of a forest and fire travels fast. Someone can smell petrol.

Their chief, Nolan, directs them to secure the perimeter, but Emma’s mostly standing and watching. The bonnet of the car’s smashed in, but the car must have stuck to the speed limit because it’s not embracing the tree with twisted metal arms the way she’s seen them before. She puts her hands in her pockets, puffing a wisp of hair out of her eyes and looks around.

There are more people than the situation knows what to do with- paramedics shining a light into the driver’s eyes, a couple of cop cars because there was another vehicle involved, apparently, and that driver’s getting interviewed and other cops are trying to keep traffic flowing, but there’s one cop talking to her chief, nodding towards the car. Nolan notices her, and gestures she join them.

“Swan, this is Officer Jones, Officer Jones, this is Emma Swan. This time last year she was a rookie.”

She takes his hand to shake, nodding. “Sometimes I even miss the hazing, sir.”

“I was just saying your unit seems a lot older than ours,” Jones says, shrugging. She grins, stretching her arms above her head.

“So chief brought me forward to disprove you,” she says, nodding. “I’m twenty three.”

“She used to get hell for being so young,” Nolan says, watching the others over her shoulder, “but we’re getting another rookie soon.”

“I hope this kid’s as tough as me, because I’ve waited a year for this,” she says, cracking her knuckles.

Jones laughs, opening his mouth to say something, but Nolan interrupts to excuse himself. The firefighters are heading back to the truck, so Emma smiles, dusting off her hands.

“It was nice to meet you, officer.”

“Killian.”

“…Killian.” She salutes, and he watches her leave, but she doesn’t think too much on it. He’s just another officer.

***

It’s not a fire, it’s a _blaze_ \- a six storey block of apartments and the third floor’s gone, smoke choking the fourth, and the structural damage is easy to gauge. There’s a lot of it.

A ladder’s already extending up, someone waiting at the bottom to clamber up and see if there’s anyone in the top apartments. Emma tears away from him- Booth’s at her side, and Nolan’s talking.

“Swan, Booth- you have three minutes,” he tells them, Emma checking her helmet’s secured. “Sweep the first and second floor, then get out.”

Booth nods at her and they go. Inside, the doors to the first floor apartments are open because they’ve been abandoned but they have to check, so they take the bare minimum time to sweep and then they’re heading upstairs- the ceiling’s creaking and even hiding in the mask the smoke offends.

Emma squints. They have three apartments and two minutes left.

“Meet here,” Booth says, pointing at the top of the stairs, and she nods, heading for the last apartment.

It isn’t the kind of place to have more than a lock, so Emma only has to kick it once to get in. It’s clear of smoke, relatively, and no one’s in there, so she comes out.

She only glances up the stairs, she can’t see fire but she can’t see much else, either, but something feels wrong. She looks again, then heads to the bottom of the stairs, calling up. “Fire department, call out!”

Her radio crackles. “ _Everyone out, now_.”

She stares at the wall of smoke above her. The heat’s more intense than when she walked up, and she’s sweating, and she turns away-

“-elp.”

Shit. She grabs her radio, hauling herself up the stairs. “Chief, someone’s on the third floor, I’m getting them-”

“ _Thirty seconds, Swan_ -”

She gets up on the landing, and she can’t see anything- then a hand grabs her. Snapping her spare mask on him, she gets him down the stairs where Booth’s waiting for her at the bottom. The guy stops before they’re all the way down- he’s a cop, and he takes off the mask, coughing.

“My partner, he’s up there, there’s a druggie too-”

Emma turns on her heel before he finishes the sentence, and Booth’s directing him out and she’s back in the smoke, and the walls are sagging along the staircase, she can see it. When she gets on the landing, Booth’s at her six, and they feel their way forwards, but Booth literally falls over the druggie.

“Shit, are you-” 

He shoves himself to standing and throws the guy over his shoulder like a rag doll. The second cop’s out cold, face dirt and blood covering his face. She grits her teeth, heaving him to sitting and crouching to match Booth, but she’s damn glad she’s lifted so many tires in training because he’s not even that heavy. They practically jog down the steps, the building’s _groaning_ -

“ _Booth, Swan, where the hell are you_ -”

Booth’s out first, and Emma’s on his heels, but they don’t stop until they’re twenty metres from the building, heading towards the paramedics. She lowers the cop onto a trolley, and his partner leaps up, swotting off his own paramedic. “Shit, Jones, _shit_ \- is he-”

Emma steps back, yanking off her helmet and gasping in the clean, relatively cool air around her. She wipes the sweat off her forehead with her gloves, and she’s a bit hazy but she’s watching the cop fuss over his partner and she gives the cop she carried out a good look.

Under the paramedic’s fingers is Killian, the officer from the car accident. His skin is white under the blood, she didn’t have time to check for a pulse-

The paramedic says something about a head injury, pushing his partner aside and loading him into the back of an ambulance. His partner climbs in with him. Emma watches them go, jumping at a crunch shuddering behind her. The building caved in on itself.

Nolan barks orders into the radio to at least get the blaze under control, and Booth claps her on the back. He’s passed off his dead weight to paramedic, too. “Nice one, kid.”

“Uh-huh,” she says, snatching the water bottle he offers her out of his hands and chugging it, some of it spilling down her chin.

“Chief’s gonna kill us, by the way.”

“It was my bad,” she says, wiping her face. He starts unclipping her harness for her, and she all but drops the tank to the ground, rolling her shoulders.

“Still saved their lives.”

She looks at the chief, who’s the closest person she’s got to family. He’s coordinating two trucks to contain the blaze to just the building and there isn’t anything that could distract from that, but he’s excellent at waiting for the right moment to reprimand someone for disobeying orders. “It won’t count for much.”

Booth snorts. “Probably not.”

***

Two days later, she’s finishing up cleaning the last truck (a punishment and they still haven’t got a rookie to put all this on), and a cop car pulls up outside the fire station’s open bay doors.

Emma stands up, and Jones gets out of the car, taking his sunglasses off. She leans down, looking past Jones to his partner, who’s in the driving seat.

“You need to move,” she says. “We need these doors clear.”

“Sorry,” he says, letting Killian shut the door before retreating to park up at the curb.

Killian’s holds out a bakery box to her, and she peeks inside. It’s about thirty donuts. “There’s probably a cop joke in here somewhere…”

“There is,” he says, grinning.

She holds back her smile, taking one and offering the box to him. Once he’s picked one out, she puts the box down. “How’s your head?”

“Oh, I only had a concussion,” he says, waving it off. “Not nearly as bad as it looked.”

“You were out for a while.”

“They wouldn’t let me back on duty if the doc hadn’t cleared it,” he says. And, well, he has a point. She sprained her ankle and was forced into two days off.

“I heard that you stumbled on a drug den in there, or something, but I didn’t get the full story…”

“We didn’t know what we’d found, but yeah. They heard us outside, arresting the kid for intent to distribute, and apparently it looked like they tried to burn some of the evidence and accidentally blew themselves up.”

Emma winced. “Shit.”

“I know.” He rubs his eyes. “Thanks.”

She shakes her head, sucking powdered sugar off her fingers. “Of course.”

He digs his hand into his pocket, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. It’s got his number on it. “Look, if you ever need anything, give me a call, okay? I owe you one.”

It’s just a phone number. But she doesn’t like relying on anyone. “Are you on duty right now?”

“Technically.”

“You should probably get back to stopping the bad guys, then,” she says, and his hand drops. “Thanks for the donuts.”

“Look, I really do owe you. You carried me out of a burning building.”

“I did my job,” she corrects, picking up the box. “That’s it.”

“I’d be dead if it weren’t for you. Just take my number- I want to be there if you need help.”

She sighs, squeezing her eyes shut, and opens up the palm of her hand, the box resting on her forearm. “Fine.”

Putting it in the palm of her hand and watching the fingers curl up around it, he smiles and starts to back up. “Anyway. Back to saving the world.”

“Off you go.”

He winks at her, turning round only to call over his shoulder; “I was talking about you!”

***

A couple of weeks later, they’re called out to a pile up. There’s six cars and a truck involved, and there’s at least three people trapped. The paramedics direct them to the car nearest to them, because there’s an unresponsive women in there, and they have to listen to the screams of the man in the next car over while they do it.

Someone tows the truck before it lights itself on fire, so they at least focus on getting each person out.

They have to take the whole top off the second car, prying it apart piece by piece so as not to make his possible neck trauma worse, but for the third one Emma just has to wriggle in the passenger window to get the pump in place. Once they’ve freed the woman’s leg, they get her on a stretcher and Emma clambers out the way she came. The road is a wreck, metal and glass everywhere, and most of the cars are write-offs, but they’re already starting to haul everything away.

She throws her jacket over her shoulder, heading back to the fire truck. No one’s moving fast, and someone jogs to pace with her.

Killian.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hello.”

“Were there any fatalities?”

“One. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, went straight through the windshield.”

She nods, and she comes over tired, rubbing her eyes. The adrenaline hits hard and drains fast. “Okay.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Tired.”

He nods. “You just… go get some sleep.”

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

“You’re busy saving everyone else. Someone has to.”

She rolls her eyes. “Quit being so grateful. I saved your life, sometimes I do that. It’s not a big deal.”

“You’re my saviour. Let me have this.”

“No.”

They look at each other. He smirks and she chuckles, and they carry on walking. “You know I’m going to worry anyway.”

“I figured as much. Feel free to communicate that worry through more donuts, they were awesome.”

“It’s noted.”

“Good.”

“Swan!” Nolan’s striding towards them. “We need to get going.”

She bites the inside of her cheek, and glances at Killian. “I’ll probably see you on another call, won’t I?”

“Probably,” he says, grinning.

“Until next time.”

“See you then.”

***

‘Next time’ happens quickly. Four days later, there’s a fire behind the bar of a diner, and the guys go in to put it out. That’s all fine, and Booth reports back that it’s clearing up, no sweat, but outside is a different matter.

Emma’s not really sure what’s happening, some kid with baggy jeans and a bad attitude marches up to Nolan and tells him they should let it burn. The chief informs him that’s not going to happen, and he should probably keep walking. Then, one of the cooks from the diner yells something at the kid, and the kid yells back, pulling out a gun.

The firefighters scatter- Emma throws herself around the side of the truck, and there aren’t any shots yet but Emma grabs her radio. “Stay inside, Booth, do not come out, there’s a gun-”

“ _What_?”

“Do not come out of that building!”

Nolan’s next to her, and he’s got his radio in hand, calling dispatch. Emma swallows, pulling out her own phone.

_SOS 126 &Lex_

“ _Swan, what’s going on_?”

“Have you got the fire out?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Stay inside, then. Shit, stay inside-”

Three guys come around a corner. They’re all wearing hoodies, and they see the smoke pouring out of the diner, and they start towards it, hands reaching into their pockets. Emma’s heart sinks. 

“The fuck-?”

The cook yells something, and the kid yelps, and Nolan grabs the scruff of her neck and smacks her into the asphalt before the shots start firing.

Emma wraps her arms around her head, curling up into as small a ball, small a target, as possible, and glass shatters and rains down on her, and she’s can’t think anything except she’s still wearing her turnout, so she shouldn’t get cut up too badly, as long as she doesn’t die-

The guns stop firing, the gang starts swearing and she hears heavy footsteps of running, and then a new sound, one she couldn’t hear over the guns- sirens. She looks up as the cop car screeches around the corner. Nolan crawls to her side, hand on her shoulder.

“Emma, Emma, are you alright-?”

“Yeah, are you-?”

“Yeah, yeah-”

Two cops jump out of the car, guns drawn, sprinting around the truck.

“Drop the gun! Put your hands on your head! NOW!”

She looks at her chief, and they help each other up, dusting glass off each other. Emma’s breathless and leans against the truck, but Nolan ducks away, off to check everyone else. 

Pacing her breathing is harder than she thinks, head thunking against the truck, in, and out, in, and out, don’t overdo it, don’t panic, you’re fine, you’re fine, just in, and out.

It’s only when she’s feeling clearer she pushes off the truck, staring where she put her hand. The windows are busted, but there’s a bullet hole where her head was and swallowing doesn’t come easy. She flicks grit off her hands where they’d been pressing pink marks deep into her palms, and they’re still shaking a little. She turns to follow her chief, but the kid’s shoved past her and into the back of the cop car, and Killian’s stood in front of her.

“Are you-?”

“I’m good.”

He checks her up are down, and steps forward, picking more glass out of her hair.

“Is everyone-?”

“Your team’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She breathes out, closing her eyes. She doesn’t know she’s doing it, but she catches his forearms in her hands and lets his just rest on her shoulders. It anchors her. “Thanks for coming.”

“We were in the neighbourhood.”

Nodding, she opens she eyes, but doesn’t even try to force a smile. She never noticed how blue his eyes are before, but then she drops her grip on him because Nolan comes around the corner, clapping Killian on the back.

“Thanks for showing up when you did.”

“No worries, mate. Just doing my job,” he says, throwing an amused glance Emma’s way. “We all do what we can.”

“Am I right in thinking we just stumbled into the middle of a turf war?”

“Tensions are running high at the moment,” Killian says, and his jaw’s set, grim. “Not much we can do except mop up afterwards.”

They’re firefighters. They know that feeling. Emma leaves the two talking, and Killian’s right, the whole squad are fine. Someone got Booth out, and he pulls her into a one-armed hug.

“That’s one of the weirder radio message I’ve had. ‘Stay inside the burning building’.”

She smiles. It’s the most she can manage, because the rest of them are laughing in their relief, but Emma’s exhausted.

A shiny black 4x4 pulls up; a detective to interview them, already. The process takes time, and he presses Emma hard, asking why she’d text an officer she didn’t even know was on duty when her chief was already radioing for help, and she ends up snapping at him that the operator might not have even been able to hear them giving a location over the sound of bullets flying.

Killian’s partner passes them, and he gives the detective a glare. “Hey, lay off her, alright?”

“I’m just making my enquiries, Cassidy,” the detective says, raising his eyebrows. “And you shouldn’t interrupt an interview.”

Cassidy squeezes her arm, but the detective doesn’t have much else to ask and he moves on to the chief, who greets him with the air of a man who knows and dislikes him, and is only willing to put up with it because the law demands he does.

Killian watches the detective over her shoulder as she approaches. His nose wrinkles. “They call him the crocodile, but ‘asshole’ works for me.”

She smiles, but it quickly fades, leaning against his car with him. She’s already thanked him, so doing it again seems stupid, but ‘thank you’ doesn’t fully convey her gratitude and she doesn’t know any other way of saying it. Then, she does, and she groans. “Aww, shit.”

“What?”

“I’ve gotta get you donuts now, haven’t I?”

Killian doesn’t answer- Cassidy does, just opening the door to get in the car. “Yes.”

“Shut it. But yes, you do,” Killian says, grinning.

“Is ten enough for the two of you?”

“They’d last at least five minutes into a stakeout.”

The chief calls for her, climbing in the truck, and they stand up.

“Don’t get shot at again,” he says, and she rolls her eyes, rocking up on her toes to kiss his cheek.

“But what if I want you to come and rescue me?”

He’s stunned, and she laughs, jumping up into the truck before he can answer. 

***

They both agreed to a day where they’d have slept properly, would’ve had real time to get ready, and didn’t have to be anywhere in a hurry. She’s not ready for it- he’s wearing leather and eyeliner, and who the hell knew she had a thing for that. They’re watching each other over their coffees- he seems as fascinated by her relaxed, slouchy top and skinny jeans and hair half-down as she is by him.

“You know,” she says, sipping the coffee he bought her, “I don’t do this a lot.”

“Date cops?”

“Date.”

He’s looking at her like there won’t ever be enough time to take her in, and she realises it’s the first thing she’s ever really told him about herself. 

He leans in, licking his lips. “I don’t, either.”

“Too much pain.” He swallows, and she ducks her head, breathing in slow.

She’s been burned, he can see it. Someone in her past did something she probably won’t tell him about for a long time, and she’s probably aching in want of being held. He knows he is.

His hand slides into hers, and she blinks. “I know.”

There’s a moment of scathing disbelief, and he tries not to look away, and it melts away, and she holds his hand tighter.

“So, what made you want to run into burning buildings in the first place-?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think :)


End file.
